Sunday, January 25, 2015

This blog gets more meaning when you learn that Rex had a Dachshund named Shatze years ago. Now, I challenge Amy to find, scan, and post a blog picture of Shatze along with a little story. It was so many years ago, that she may need her Mom's help......Hans

WELL, HERE YOU ARE:

Sorry this took so long to find for you. Do you remember about a year and a half ago when I wiped out my terabyte hard drive with ALL the pictures on it?? Well this has got me started on a VERY LONG process of sorting ALL those files into folders by year. After that I will have to sort by month and get things organized. It will probably take FOREVER!!

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Friday, January 23, 2015

YESTERDAY WAS MY 66TH BIRTHDAY, AND LIKE 10,000 BABY BOOMERS PER DAY, I FILED FOR MY SOCIAL SECURITY AND RETIRED FROM MY CASINO JOB. YAHOO !!!ACTUALLY I RETIRED ON JANUARY 1ST AND HAVE BEEN SPENDING MY TIME PLAYING NICKLE-DIME-QUARTER POKER THREE NIGHTS A WEEK WITH THE GUYS IN THE RV PARK, AND RIDING THE HELL OUT OF MY SCOOTER.THE FIRST QUESTION I GET ABOUT MY RETIREMENT IS, WHAT ABOUT MARY? MARY IS STILL WORKING AT THE CASINO AND HAS 14 WEEKS UNTIL HER SUMMER “OFF” ON THE MOUNTAIN.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

REMEMBER ABOUT FIVE YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS COMPLAINING ABOUT THE .75 CENT TACOS AT HOUCHS NOT TASTING AS GOOD AS AS THE .50 CENT TACOS? WELL THIS YEAR THE TACOS ARE $1.00. HOUCHS HAS A MONDAY TACO SPECIAL.

Friday, January 16, 2015

WE ENJOYED OUR ROADTRIP TO PHOENIX, AND OUR VISIT WITH DAVE AND CINDY. HERE IS THEIR SALLY DOG MAKING HER MORNING TRIP AROUND THE BACKYARD SWIMMING POOL.

THE LUNCHEON WAS VERY WELL ATTENDED AND AN OVERFLOW AREA NEEDED TO BE SET UP AS ALL THE PEOPLE WOULD NOT FIT INTO THE ROOM. THE HOSPITAL CEO AND TWO BOARD MEMBERS ATTENDED AND SPOKE TO THE GROUP.

WE DIDN’T LEARN ALL THAT MUCH BECAUSE THE REAL ESTATE DEAL HAS NOT CLOSED TO DATE, BUT THEY ARE STILL SAYING WE WILL WILL GET TO STAY IN THE PARK FOR THE NEXT 2 OR 3 SUMMERS. WE ALSO LEARNED THAT A NEW PARK IS IN THE PLANNING STAGES AND WILL BE READY BY THE TIME OUR CURRENT PARK CLOSES. OUR APPROACH HASN’T CHANGED AS WE PLAN TO STAY RIGHT WHERE WE ARE FOR THE SUMMER AND WATCH AND LEARN AS OUR NEIGHBORS SELECT NEW SPOTS AND HAVE THEIR TRAILERS MOVED.

IT WAS GREAT TO BRIEFLY SEE AND VISIT WITH OUR SUMMER FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

WE’RE ON A TWO DAY ROADTRIP TO PHOENIX, STAYING OVER AT OUR FRIENDS DAVE AND CINDYS. LAST FALL IN NOVEMBER WE RECEIVED A LETTER FROM THE SHOW LOW HOSPITAL THAT THEY HAD PURCHASED THE 16 ACRES NEXT DOOR WHERE OUR SUMMER, “ON THE MOUNTAIN” RV PARK SITS. THE LETTER STATES THAT NOTHING WOULD CHANGE FOR TWO YEARS, BUT WE ALL KNOW THE HOSPITAL DOESN’T PLAN TO BE IN THE RV PARK BUSINESS.

THE ROADTRIP IS TO ATTEND A LUNCHON WHERE THE CEO OF THE HOSPITAL IS GOING TO SPEAK TO US ON THE FUTURE OF THE PARK.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Finally got my hands this book which I have been after for years. She is a retired teacher of history from Eau Clair.The US government kept quite a few, mostly German POWs in Wisconsin near the end of the war. There was such a labor shortage that they proved very useful in harvesting crops.

The book is full of cute stories about the interaction between the prisoners and the locals. This one caught my eye.....

The passage reads: “ Beyond his large back yard was a cornfield and next to that was a large barracks housing German PW’s. The Henrys had a maid whose job included feeding the family pet, a Dachshund named Schatze. Sometimes the maid had to call Schatze for dinner as he ran into the cornfield. She went to the edge of the field and called ‘Schatze’ several times. The prisoners would come to the wire fence and hoot and holler back at the maid who never understood why. I don’t believe anyone ever told her that ‘Schatze’ in German means ‘sweetheart.’.”

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Ever since I grudgingly bought little Jake a pair of designer $75 athletic shoes 30 years ago, I have been dead set against that concept, namely paying nearly $100 for roughly $6.00 worth of plastic and rubber . Like most of fashion, it is preying on the gullible, somehow convincing them they "have to have it", then soaking them for the privilege of owning some impractical shiny bauble.

So, needless to say, with an attitude like that, I have never owned expensive, designer, brand-named athletic shoes. I wear cheap knock-off imitation shoes built in some unpronounceable southeast Asian country by little girls working 14 hour days for 12 cents an hour Then, in August, Renee and I were window shopping in Shawano out of boredom and we found a pair of designer shoes on the clearance rack for $25. They fit, although they were women's. I thought, What the Heck? give it a try. Maybe they will make me a better athlete or a better person like the advertisements promise...........

.....I wore them about 90 days, then switched back to leather loafers when I stopped wearing shorts November 1st. Since then only a few hours of volleyball. That little white spot is my sock. A hole has been worn in the toe. From that minimal use! I hate fashion! It is a ripoff!

So it is off to the store to buy cheap imitations (which last a year) Oh Well. Those little girls have to eat, too.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

When Uncle Hans blogs without a picture, it is serious. I don't even know if the editor will print this, it is political. I am responding to the "snow-in-the-desert" blog. I am a crackpot. Ideas and theories that go against the majority (and often turn out to be wrong). Nutrition. Fashion. Religion. Global warming. You name it. I have a new crackpot theory, taken from a small but growing bunch of scientists who think weather and temperatures are determined more by the activity of the sun than the activities of mankind (anthropogenic). The anthropogenic effect is real, and causing a little raise in global temps. But the activity of the sun, which is cyclic and fairly dependable, has a much larger effect. This effect comes around every 200 or so years. 400 years ago, they had festivals on the ice of the Thames river in London and it was called the "little ice age". 200 years ago, there was so much famine in Europe from crop failure that it caused the French revolution 1789 and Napoleon was defeated in Russia by an extremely cold winter a few years later. Crops failed in New England, and caused a westward migration in this country, as well.

In short, there is a lot of science behind this, the global temperature graphs and the sun activity graphs are scary in the way they correspond and they predict a cooling trend starting about 1995 and bottoming out in 2031, with raising temps after that back to a fairly "normal" range by 2050. The cooling since 1995 has indeed been offset by the anthropogenic "global warming" effect. So there has been NO change in global temperatures since 1998 (an "Inconvenient Truth" that Al Gore's fails to mention). Starting in 2010, the effect of the sun has been stronger than the anthropogenic and temps are starting to go down. Snow in the desert. 15,000 cars stranded in the snow in Europe last week. Our summer last year was cool, I put half the usual miles on the motorcycle. Our winter last year was wide and deep.....6 nights below -30. This winter started off rough, we had more snow and cold in November, as did eastern USA, setting records. ( I DO remember Rex's blogs about triple digits in the desert last summer, but I am talking about trends and patterns)

So I am going out on the crackpot limb, predicting slowly more cooling until 2031, when crops may fail in the breadbasket of the world, the Midwest. Only time will tell, but if that happens, a lot of scientists and politicians will have some 'splaining to do !

THE HAPPY CAMPERS

WE STARTED THIS BLOG IN THE SPRING OF 2006 TO KEEP OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS "UP TO SPEED" ON OUR DAILY LIVES, LIVING IN A 34 FOOT CAMPER. WE USE THE "HODGEPODGE" APPROACH TO BLOGGING AND INCLUDE WHAT WE'RE THINKING, GUEST ENTRIES, DAILY LIFE, CASINO STORIES, COOKING STORIES, TRAVEL STORIES, AND A GENEROUS PINCH OF BULLSHIT.MARY AND I SHARE IN THE WRITING OF THE BLOG, AND REX ALWAYS TYPES IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, SO YOU CAN TELL WHOM IS WRITING.

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By Uncle Hans

BLOG ENTRIES WRITTEN BY "UNCLE HANS", ARE WRITTEN BY MY BROTHER HANS. HANS LOVES TO WRITE WHEN SO MOVED AND HAS JOINED OUR "TEAM" SO TO SPEAK. THANKS FOR THE BLOG ENTRIES "UNCLE HANS"!!!

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